major national importance, we don't think there ought to be any regulations for the balance of this congress. so i am proposing a bill for the outright ban of all new federal regulations through the remainder of the obama administration until january 31, 2013. this would remove in this period of time when we're trying to bring our job numbers up and bring our unemployment numbers down, this would give the country an opportunity to take at least in one area a deep breath and relax, that the regulators are not going to change the playing field on them halfway through a year or through a month. there's so many regulations we've talked about in the past few months and for the balance of this year that are surprises to everybody. and they're throwing big, big

monkey wrenches in the machinery that drives our economy. now, you'll -- if you read the newspapers, and we hear people comments on why aren't people creating jobs? why is capital investment on the sidelines? why are people holding on to their money instead of investing their money in their businesses, or investing their money in other people's businesses so we can grow this economy, they're sitting on the sideline and not participating. you will hear both sides of the aisle in this house talk about the trillions of dollars that are being held back from investments. you'll hear arguments made by the other side, by the democrats in this house that it's the greed of the big corporations that's doing this. but when you study the problem, it's not just the big corporations that are sitting back and waiting, it's the

small businessman. it's the guy with one shop, maybe thinking about adding on to that shop, thinking about adding one more machinist or one more salesman, but you know what? there's too many questions about what's over the horizon for them to take the chance of investing their money when they don't know what's going to happen. and as i explained as i started out, part of it is they wonder about the possibility of new taxes. secondly, because there's been a lot of talk in this administration about taxes, they're backing off of it now, but many of the things they do seems to change depending on which way the wind is blowing, so they're worried about the possibility of new taxes. they're worried about the fact that they can look at numbers, they read balance sheets, even the small businessman can read balance sheets and profit-loss statements and they look at this federal government and

they say, my lord. this just this year alone they're projecting a -- based on president obama's proposed budget for 2011, they're projecting a -- about a $1.6 trillion deficit this year. and most business people know what deficit means. and most of all of us do. but sometimes we think it's some big words coming out of washington, not realizing what it really is. it means you're spending money you don't have. in fact, arguably every time you buy something with your credit card, you're deficit spending. you don't is -- don't have the cash in your pocket to buy the new television set so you put it on the credit card. you borrow the money you spend money that you don't have. now if we were like the great state of texas, where we have a

balanced budget requirement in the constitution, in texas, then the texas legislature, they can't deficit spend. they can't spend money they don't have. they have a no deaf constituent -- no deficit spending rule in their constitution. you spend what the projected revenues are and that's it. sometimes it's real tough. to make things work. but you know what, they always somehow figure out a way to get it done this year is no exception. it's tough in texas. and they're doing the things we're trying to do here in this house. they're reducing their spending. as our state -- as are states across the country. all you have to do is turn on the television you see the issues in wisconsin and michigan and other places, in minnesota -- not minnesota. indiana, all these people are

addressing -- new york, virginia, they're addressing the fact that they just got to cut back on their spending. well, we're addressing that fact too in this house right now. but the businessman looks at that and says, what's the track record. our track record is not real good. in fact, our track record is such that they say, odds are they're not going to do these cuts that are necessary to stop it. and here's something interesting. right now, in h.r. 1, the republican majority has set forth a series of cuts that total up to about $63 billion, they've agreed to about $10 billion, call it $53 billion that's on the table out there waiting for some kind of action from the senate. this is attached to a

continuing resolution. now that business owner pack home, he looks at that and he says, let's see. $63 billion, that's a tiny little band-aid on a gigantic rear end of an elephant. but that's the tax cuts being proposed and they don't seem to be able to get those things. not tax cuts. that's spending cuts that are being proposed and they don't seem to be able to do that. what in the world are they going to do about the $1.6 trillion. he says, i don't think i want to play in that barbg. that's too dangerous for me. i have a little savings in my back pocket to invest in my business but now is not a good time. there's way too much debt floating around out there. there's way too much uncertainty about the economy floating around out there. i think i'll wait. so my plan to create one or two new jobs to grow my profits for my business is going to have to wait. even though i may have the

money to invest, it's going to wait because i don't feel the environment is good for it. another one of those unknowns that's keeping capital and keeping the growing of the labor force from happening. finally these regulations. when, as our friend from georgia was just talking about, just take, for instance, the issue that has to do with this -- these new regulations concerning pesticides that have come out, it came out and then was, i think some court has gotten involved in it. but what they've done basically is told people who use pesticides and i think everybody knows pesticides are to kill bugs that eat crops, that's just the general use for pesticides, so that means your farmers, ranchers, and some of your businesspeople are going

to be affected by this and they look at it and say, i used to have a permit, i got one. now i have to have a new permit. costs me more money. they've changed the rules in the middle of the game. now i'm sitting here wondering what in the world am i going to do if they change the rules again. what am i going to do with my money? i'm going to keep it in the pocket. i'm not going to invest in my bids or expand my farm, i'm not going to buy that new combine or trade for some more cattle. i'm basically going to sit where i am and hold pat. i'm also not going to hire anybody to help me with these issues. these are things that are typical of what causes the people who invest in the real world of private business, who employ 2/3 or more of the american public, to sit on the sidelines. so big business or small if you don't understand the playing field and there are people out there that can change your life

at a whim, you get concerned about it. we've seen so many examples of that. i'll just throw out the flex permitting, clean air act issues that are going on in texas which we've talked about before. after 15 years of using a flex permit in texas, never a word said by the e.p.a., all of a sudden out of the clear blue, they decide you know what, i don't think we like that flex permit system of we're just going to do away with it and change the rules. without going into what a flex permit is, it's very simple. flex permits works for your business the one day and the next day you had to have a completely different permit with a whole new set of rules and whole new set of obligations you would be very concerned about the environment with which your business is being operated. and, by the way, you'd be

really upset when you realized that your clean air issues in your state where you're using a flexible permit pay the -- the clean air reductions have met the demands of the e.p.a. and probably exceed many, many states who don't go to a flexible permitting system. but some reason, your state, who is doing good, has to change permits to do like the -- like some of the states that aren't doing as good as your state and you have to say to yourself, what is the motive for all of this? well, would you put your money into a project when something like that could happen to you? we ask ourselves why have we been having unemployment in this country somewhere between 10% and 8.9% over the last 25 months.

well, part of it is the people who create the jobs, the real jobs, the jobs that make our economy grow, are the businesspeople of this country. and for 25 months, they have not been hiring because we have created a world of mistrust in what might happen to you that you couldn't even imagine as a result of actions of this federal government. to me, the most important thing we have to do in this congress right now is create jobs. it will change the very makeup of our nation if we get our nation back to work. it's time for the government to get out of the way of small business, get out of the way of the entrepreneurs in this country and give them the opportunity to create jobs. and with all the playing defense we're trying to do here

in the house, with the congressional review act, and other proposals that are out there, seems to me we ought to just say, at least for a two-year period, just tout. -- just time out. there are enough regulations in effect right now by the federal regulatory agencies to fill this entire chamber to the ceiling with books. so i don't think it hurt us too much. if it turns out it's a national emergency and you have such an issue that it is just so overwhelmingly necessary to come up with a regulation, then maybe we'll put it out and submit it to congress and let congress make a determination about whether or not it is of that dire importance. but right now, just quit messing with us. just get out of the way and let us have a chance to go do what

we do best. which is, i forget who it was, i want to say it was calvin cool inl, it was one of our past presidents -- coolidge, it was one of our past presidents, who said the business of america is business. two saturdays ago, i was at south by southwest, a very exciting activity that takes place in austin, texas, it not only promotes the live music industry, which is huge in austin, live music capital of the world, but in addition, it promotes entrepreneurship among people with new, great ideas. and those new, great idea people, all -- i talk to them, they are so excited. such great young people. many of them in the high tech industry but in all the industries. those young people sat there and told me the one thing you can do that would hurt us the

most is tax stock options and put up regulations that would prevent me doing what i need to do in my project. so if the government will stay out of my way and if you won't impose taxes on the very source of investment money that i'm seeking as a new entrepreneur, if you don't do those two things and you stay out of the way, i've got an idea that can change this country. and many of them have just those ideas. some of the things we have now like facebook, those things like they made a movie about and all that stuff, all that was the idea of a young entrepreneur, he got somebody to invest in it, and boom. it swept the world. so that's why i've got a moratorium regulation. but in addition, we've got a couple of folks that are taking off after regulations that are

clearly hurting the opportunity to create jobs. the regulatory flexibility act, r.f.a., is being proposed. it requires federal agencies to assess the economic impact of their regulations on small business. we have something like this now but it's going to be expanded and made more clear. if the impact is significant, consider alternatives that are less burdensome. the agencies must balance the burdens imposed by the regulations against the benefits and propose alternatives to the regulations which create economic disparities among different sidesent to -- different sized entities. the small business committee has held hearings on this, on the r.f.a., an they're holding some tomorrow, on wednesday, to discuss this agency compliance with the act. regulars are killing good jobs

and that's what i've been talking about. here's the small business committee looking at small business with really a focus on small business and why, you know, why do you hear people talk about small business? in congress, when you've got all these giant international corporations that our friends on the other side of the aisle love to talk about? well, for one thing, seven out of 10 americans, they get a job in small business. small business creates seven out of 10 private sector jobs in the united states. some of those private sector jobs are real well-paying jobs. and in fact some of the people that i was talking to at this little entrepreneur group that i was with, they said, well, the first 10 people we will employ, we expect their salary range to be somewhere between $100,000 and $150,000 a year. that's darn good jobs. but they're looking to hire

highly skilled technical people to advance a concept they have in the high-tech industry. what do we get from those concepts? well, you probably got a cell phone in your pocket, you may have the new apple i pad sitting on your dis-- ipad sitting on your desk or you may have a brand new one which has a camera in it so you can talk to your spouse around the world or your friend around the world and both of you can see each other. these are all ideas that came from entrepreneurial thinking that began with one person with an idea. the one thing the americans still have to sell is ideas. and we are the only innovative idea creators on earth. everybody else are good copiers but we're the guys with the original thoughts. we don't want to kill that. we don't want regulations to kill it and we don't want bad regs to keep this unemployment number above 8%, almost 9%.

another act is h.r. 872, this is the bill about congress battling a bad ruling by the federal courts. the bill eliminates a costly and duplicative permitting requirement for the application of pesticides. that's what our friend from georgia was talking about just a few minutes ago, mr. scott. this now will require a different type of permitting system and it will quite honestly place the burden on farmers, ranchers and anybody who uses pesticides, i assume exterminaters and so forth, it will put a huge burden on them and the only thing that you can do is clearly put a halt to this e.p.a. new regulatory activity.

even though the court recently said, well, we won't require this until october, it doesn't matter whether it's required today or whether it's required in october, whenever it is required it's still a burden. so my friends on the ago committee are very, very -- ag committee are very, very serious about challenging the creation of this new regulation. we've been using the congressional review act and we've got several things that we have dealt with on the congressional review act. and what it does, it -- if it is a major regulation -- this is the law today, this law was created in the clinton administration, it's been used once and that's the only time it's ever been used which surprises me, but we're trying to use it on multiple bills that are out there that are creating a regulatory burden on individuals or industries of this country. last year the federal government

issued a total of 3,316 new rules and regulations, an average of 13 rules a day. 78 of those new rules last year were major rules. a major rule is a rule that may result in the annual affect on the economy of $100 million or more and a major increase in cost of prices for consumers or significant adverse affects on the economy. and if it is a new rule it is required under the congressional review act that it be submitted to the committees of jurisdiction that cover that rule in the house and senate and that they have the opportunity within 60 legislative days, that is days that congress is in session, not counting the days it is not in session, and if there's a vote, let's say the how it's passes it and -- haas the house passes it and sends to

the senate, it only requires 30 senators to co-sponsor the bill to bring that vote to a floor vote in the senate. and then we'll have the opportunity to send some bad regulations that passed both the house and the senate to the president and he told us less than a month ago that one of his goals this year was to get rid of these onerous regulations that are costing us jobs in america. and i think that if both this house and this senate, that the senate across the way, if both those entities feel it's a bad rule, i think the president will look at it and i'm very hopeful that he will dispose that rule. we're not just talking about the e.p.a. there's a lot of rules that are out there, but e.p.a. just seems to have, you know, more than their share right now. i talked about the flexible permitting act and we have filed

a c.r. challenge, a congressional review act challenge -- -- c.r.a. challenge, a congressional review act challenge. chairman upton of the energy and commerce committee has been or is holding hearings on the clean air act and on this issue and that will be one issue that we're going to be working on, trying to get done. the f.c.c. has a regulation for net neutrality. this rule grants the federal government new power to regulation the -- regulate the internet, restricting access and stalling innovation. one of the things that those young people that i met with the other night, there was about 100 of them now, a small group, they sade all said, most of them, the internet was a tool they were using to come up with their good ideas or to promote their good ideas or to use the internet for their good ideas. and they were very much opposed, as am i, to any regulation of the internet.

the freedom of the internet is a freedom of expression, a freedom of expression which creates freedom of ideas and the exchange of ideas creates innovation which drives -- is the fuel to drive our economy. so, mr. greg walden is addressing this issue under the c.r.a. of net neutrality. h.h.s. has a rule on medical loss ratio. this regulation were to require all health care plans to pay a minimum of 80% of premiums toward health services, eliminating coverage for 47% of americans and small group and individual health plans. this is an area which we have filed, nye office and john carter, has filed this, however, i am going to have a lot of assistance from the medical professionals in my -- in this house, and going forward on this

medical loss ratio. it is a serious regulation which will seriously harm the advancement of health care in america. and then we have a rule, nefhap rule, for portland is he metropolitan manufacturers. this has toot toad with cement kilns that make cement. portland, it's not named after a town, it's a process whereby you make the cement that binds concrete. to create concrete. for this country. this kills good-paying jobs. the average paying job in one of these kilns starts at around $60,000 to $70 a year and goes

up -- $70,000 a year and goes up. these are good jobs. now where are these jobs going to go? we have to have cement. we're already a great number of the kilns that make portland cement have moved offshore already. and they're over in china and they're over in india and places like that where they have no regulations on particulates that go into the air. meanwhile we've actually reduced a lot of the things that go into the air under the present regulations but these new regulations will move those american jobs out of the country to another country and rather than help the air, puts the same air is in india as -- because the same air is in india as is in china as over here. it's all in this big place we call the world, will still be polluting the air but 10 times worse than we do under our current regulations in the united states and we lules the

jobs. so we are going to seek a vote on portland cement manufacturing -- manufacturing regulations and the argument that this increases mercury pollution essentially falls because we have evidence to show that mercury pollution, if it's in the united states, is coming from offshore. so all these things are things that are proposed right now. we've got charts over here to look at each one of them. here's the regulatory moratorium. outright ban on federal regulations, removes the top obstacle to economic recovery, business won't hire with obamacare, e.p.a. regs hanging over their head. the regulatory flexibility act.

shaded areas indicate u.s. you is session. the 2009 research -- that's the word i can't read, organizations. look at how this is. this is what's happening from regulations. it's going up. on the unemployment scale. the r.e.f. requires the federal agencies to assess the economic impact on small business, we talked about that. to come up with alternatives because unemployment rates are around or above 9% for the past 22 months, it's time that we make these regulations be assessed and seven out of 10 of the new jobs are created by these small businesses. when you hear us talk about the pesticide act, it's very clear,

there's the folks that are dealing with it right there. the farmers of america. and it's duplicative. that means they already have a permit that allows them to put out these pesticides and because of this ruling they're having to make -- get another permit at another cost and meet other guidelines for these pesticides. the sixth circuit, we think with this, made a bad ruling and these higher costs to producers and consumers and the government are all built into this one bad regulation. this act, as we talked about, 872, is to block this bad ruling. this is the kind of fight we've got to have to prevent the regulators from getting so involved that they actually shut down our businesses. now, is anybody here, including, i'm certainly not, and i don't think anybody in this house is proposing that we do things that are harmful.

it's not like they weren't already regulating that pesticide. they just came up with a new permit, new money to spend, new hoops to jump through in order to be -- to apply pesticides. here's what i've been talking about, congressional review act. last congress, the -- allows congress to review every regulation issued by government agencies and passage of a joint resolution overrule that regulation. so these things i've been talking about, the house and the senate both can go forward under this act and we can put the brakes on some bad regulations. here's the ones i mentioned, the texas flexible permitting program, the net neutrality rule, the medical loss ratio and the portland cement. those are all that can be

addressed by this act and many more. but you know, maybe we could just save ourselves a whole lot of time and effort by just passing the newest proposal that i've put forward, and that is a regulation that says, i mean a law that says, time out until 2013 on any regulations from the government, and let's just hold off and give this economy and chance to grow. and when it grows, we will prosper, we will get out of this mess we're in, we'll get back to being the america we all treasure and love. it's not hard to imagine in a there's something really bad of course this house will protect it. but many of these things are people in closed rules, some don't understand the tri-they're regulating, coming up with rules because they have

a concept of government that is all government, all loads lead to rome, so all government leads to washington and all government decisions and all life decisions should be made here. in washington. there are people in this city, literally tens of thousands, maybe hundreds of thousands of people in this city that believe that all life issues should be resolved by the federal government. the perfect example that i -- that just really upsets me is the fact that without kind of randomly when the opposite party, the democrats took over in the house, they just decided to get rid of all the light bulbs in all the office buildings and put in these curlicue light bulbs all over everywhere. these lights, some of them, you turn them on, it takes you a good 20 count before the light

even has enough light to see. that's very uncomfortable, especially in the bathroom. but we've got them. and if you take yours out and put the old light bulb, incandescent light bulb in there, next day you'll come band and the maintenance man will have taken it out and put one of those curlicue light bulbs because the government knows better what light bulb you ought to have. and they've passed a law that says you won't be able to have anything but those realize. but they fail to realize if you drop one of those light bulbs on the floor and it bursts, it's got mercury vapor in it and some other nasty stuff i don't know what it is, and all of a sudden you've got to call the hazardous materials team to come in in hoods and suits and do a hazmat removal of that broken light bulb. now, i'm sorry, one of the

things i like to say is one of the things we have a shortage of in america, especially the america that's inside the beltway in washington, d.c., is common sense. but to put a hazardous material light bulb in to correct a normal, something you have against a normal light bulb, because you think it burns too much power, is not very cost efficient. i'm pleased to see my friend mr. steve king from iowa drift in here. anything you want to talk about here tonight, brother king, i'll be glad to yield you some time. mr. king: i thank the gentleman from texas, the good judge who has taught me a few things about all of this. one of those things is sitting on the judiciary committee with the gentleman from texas, i haven't learned it very well but i saw the demonstration on how to listen. one of the common denominators of the judges from texas we have serving in this congress,

they're good listeners, and they've heard a lot of stories, some the truth, some not, and they sort that out pretty well so when i hear judge carter come to the floor to tell us how it is, i'm confident he's listened really carefully and drawn a judgment as to what's the truth and what isn't, boiled it down to the essential facts of constitution and law and common sense and rendered a verdict. so as i hear this verdict emerging here from the presentation this evening, it calls me to the floor to say thank you to the gentleman from texas for bringing this up for all the times that you've come to the floor and sometimes had a stand on a good cause and that's the way good things get started, it's usually one person starting us out and truth seems to attract more people to a truthful, good and just cause. so i'm interested in the gentleman's presentation here and not particularly informed

but i came to listen. >> thank you. mr. king: i'm happy to continue my listening and yield back to the gentleman from texas. mr. carter: i'm about through. i want to point out. i don't have anything against fluorescent workshops. i've got a few in my workshop in the garage, because they gave me more light for less money, not because of electricity, but i made that choice. and i think that's fine. if people want to choose to have all fluorescent light bulbs in their house, that's great. that's -- that's the america we love. but i don't think nancy pelosi or anybody else in this house of representatives ought to be telling us what kind of light bulbs we have to have. it doesn't make sense. it's not fair to you. you are a person of independent will. you are granted liberty and freedom by your constitution -- by the constitution of the united states and those are just recording god-given rights

and privileges and i don't see why we think we are the center of the universe for knowledge in this house to come up and tell you what kind of light bulbs you can have. or what kind of energy that you can consume. unless it comes out to be against the national interest, and i would argue right now with all the alternative energy, we haven't got anything to replace what we're using right now yet, keep working on it, then let us make the choice, let the american citizens make the choice as to what they want to do. i think that's good free dm. that's good liberty. that's what we are all about in this country. that's why we prosper. because we give the individual the right to make his own choices. if he chooses to do something that harms others, we can put a stop to da. and -- to that.

and if he doesn't, that's all right. we don't have any right to tell the individual how to live his life. i would argue this stupid light bulb rule is one of those things. i'll argue that until it's imposed completely as a mandate sometime next fall, i think. and then i guess the light bulb police will be coming after me. but seriously, this is the kind of things we do by regulation, impose our will on others and in many instances it's done by bureaucrats who sit in washington, d.c. and they probably don't -- have never even seen that plow that we just saw in that farm except maybe they've seen it on television. they certainly have not seen anybody out there sweating on an iowa farm or texas farm, operating, what does that look like it's a disk harrower, or

maybe a seeder, yet they're writing regulations to regulate this man's life. meab they're the right thing to do but you wonder when they have one and they come up with another one that you still have to meet the first one and stack the sec one on top of it, and it clearly has no -- serves no purpose. these are all the kind of arguments that frustrate you. the kind of things that make the average businessman, the average farmer, rancher, decide to hold off on investing in america because he wants to know what america he's investing in. he or she is investing in. and that is the real issue that is driving the fact that we are still sitting here right around 9% unemployment, after all these months, over 25 months, we're sitting here with the

same 8.9%, as close to 9% as i want to get, unemployment. because the americans that create the jobs are concerned about what next? i see mr. king has something to say. i yield whatever time you wish to consume. mr. king: i thank the gentleman from texas. as i listen to this presentation, a number of things occur to me about what happens when you have a -- when you have federal agencies and the federal agencies are passing rules and regulations that even though there's a prod authority that's granted to those agencies by this congress, some of the things that they do are beyond the imagination of the people that debated or voted for the bill in the first place. and i look at the clean water act, the endangered species act, which are more than 30 careers old by now. they've turned into something way beyond the imagination of the people who passed them. the environmentalists that supported them then seem to be on the edge of what would be considered mainstream. looking back on that, they'd be

considered mainstream now but the problem we have and particularly with e.p.a. would be that the mothers and fathers of the e.p.a. employees that first implemented the rules and regulations of clean water act and endangered species act, now their children have picked this up and others from outside a second generation of people. and they've come into these professions now with, like many young people do, and it's good to be idealistic and have a sense of a cause but if you look at a law written in 1978 and you apply it with the vision of having a cause you want to be championed for in 2011, quite often the second generation environmentalist is something entirely different then -- than the first generation environmentalist and they'll interpret the law and write rules beyond the scope of the imagination of those who drafted it and ratified it and the president that signed it system of i deal with things back in my environmental

perspective, having spent my life's work in the soil conservation business and we have gone out and done some drainage work, mostly it's been surface work, terraces, dams and water ways and i've envationed that we would want to send all the rain drops down through the soil profile to purify that water in nature's intened way and keep the soil from washing down the stream and ending up in the gulf of mexico gentleman the regulations that come from some of the e.p.a. initiatives are things such as, i can think of protecting streams, an issue that came to many states, but it came to iowa, it was one of the things that drew me to political life. they wrote a rule that said these waters for these stream, these 115 streams that were designed to be protected for their natural, riparian beauty to quote the rule, some of them were drainage ditches i had floated and walked those streams all over western iowa, there were drainage ditches.

there was no natural riparian beauty, they wanted to pe serve and protect them and call them endangered streams. so i began going to the hearings for the rules. and in the rules they wrote that these streams and according to the geographical boundaries defined here, and, and i quote, waters hydrologically connected to them, shall be declared protected streams and shall be under the purview of the department of natural resources which regulaters in e.p.a. now, and i began to ask the question, here's how language gets stretched. i asked the question, what does waters hydrologically connected to mean? and the regulators would stand before the public meeting and they would say, we don't know. you're here presenting a rule and you don't know what it means, waters hydrologically connected to them? no.

we can't. why not? how come you cant if you don't take it out? they knew when i walked into the second meeting who i was and what i was there for, i asked one question and i didn't get an answer, i opened my mouth for the second question, they said only one question per person and i said i drove two and a half hours to get here, it's going to take me two and a half hours to get home, i'm going to stand here until i get all my questions appsed. it came to this. they had decided they wanted to regulate what it amounted to every square foost the state of iowa under rules that were slipperily deceptive. it was lang wg that said waters hydrologically connected to. moist soil will have in it water content of 25%, 28%, 30%, and still be fairly stable. that would regulate us up to to

the kitchen sink. that's one thing environmental extremists sought to impose on us in the state that gave them all kinds of latitude. another one would be when they decided to declare wetlands by aerial photographs and the aerial photographs would look down, take a shot and if there were certain amount of vegetation growing in the field they declared it to be a wetland that otherwise would have been farmed. so there could be somebody missed with the herb side on top of the hill, the foxtail would grow, the corps of engineers would declare that our to be a wetland on top of the hill. this is how government regulation gets out of hand and starts to take over the property rights of the individuals, who have a right to use that property in a responsible way as a meeps of an income to produce crops even if it happens to be cotton, which we don't have much of in my district, so i just think that this congress should do this.

we should bring every rule before this congress for an affirmative vote before it can have the force and effect of law. we can do it en bloc, bring them all in together. we need to give any member an opportunity to divide a rule out and force a separate vote on it and we need to give members the opportunity to amend them. and the gentleman from kentucky, mr. davis, has a bill that addresses this in this fashion. it's not as broad in scope as i would go but it's a very, very good start on getting this congress under control and the regulators under control and giving congress the authority that's vested in us in the constitution rather than subcontracting it off to the agencies and letting them run this government at will. so i appreciate the gentleman from texas giving me an opportunity to vent myself on these frustrating issues and i appreciate your leadership and i yield back. mr. carter: our friend from kentucky, reclaiming my time, our friend from kentucky has been down here with me talking just about that act and i don't know if you are -- you were in

when we first started this, i have just proposed because i see this tidal wave of regulation, hurry up and regulate everything you can in a hurry, going on by the administration, i just -- i will tomorrow morning file a bill to declare a moratorium on all regulations and they'd have to come to congress showing good cause why it's in the national interest for the good of all mankind that be an exception to that moratorium. so we would basically just call time-out and let's wait for the end of this administration and we'll see what happens in the next one and by that time we can settle down and create a few jobs in this country because they wouldn't have to, at least for the next two years, worry about regulations. so i'll get you a copy of that, it's real simple. no regulations for the next two years. mr. king: if the gentleman would yield. mr. carter:, yes, i will.

mr. king: if the title that have bill is the king's x bill, i'd be very interested to sign on. mr. carter: i like x's x. steve king, you're a good friend for coming down here and joining me. i've gone over what i have to say here tonight and i just want to finish up by saying, nobody is against to get right thing. i'm against people who are creating regulations for the sake of regulations and damaging the people who are the job creators in this country. i'm for protecting the environment, but if you're belching out pollutants in china because you moved out of the united states because of onerous regulations and you weren't belching out those pollutants in america because we had a good clean air act in place, before you wrote the bad regulations, then you're not helping the environment at all. by sending that to an unregulated place in china or india. so let's get real.

let's try to set up an environment in this nation that creates jobs so americans can go back to work. it's all about going back to work. mr. speaker, i yield back the balance of my time. the speaker pro tempore: under the speaker's announced policy of january 5, 2011, the chair recognizes the gentleman from iowa, mr. king, for 30 minutes. mr. king: i thank the gentlelady from for recognizing me here on the floor of the house, madam speaker. and i appreciate the privilege to address you. i came to this floor, one, to here from -- hear from judge carter and listen to the presentation that he made, and the other component of it is i came here to talk about one or

perhaps two subject matters. one of them is obamacare as one might imagine. and i'd make this point that, well, first, madam speaker, if it's possible that there's anybody that doesn't know why obamacare is so bad, if they maybe haven't heard the argument and they're forget being how bad obamacare is, and if they're starting to hear the language about what's reble about obamacare, i want to make it real clear, nothing. there is not one single component of obamacare that's worthy of us making any effort to do anything except to repeal it all and eradicate it all, pull it all out by the roots. i listened to some members of this congress that will say, don't you want your children to be on insurance, on your insurance when they're 26? no. i raised them to grow up, i want them to take their own responsibility. if they can be elected to the united states congress when

they're 25 then i think that's a pretty good age to at least say, you're free -- first you got your car keys when you were 16. your license anyway. and then you got to vote when you were 18 and choose the next leader in the free world and you got to go out and let me say go into the tavern legally when you're 21 and get elected to the united states congress when you're 25 and then they kick you off of mommy and daddy's insurance when you're 26. somehow i think that delays the growing up process. i think that we need to have people growing up and taking personal responsibility at an early age rather than delaying that until a later age. and if the states want to have it at 26, let them have it at 26. if insurance companies want to provide for that mark, let them write the policy to provide for that market. but the federal government should not stick a mandate on this that requires all health insurance policies to keep the kids on until they're 26.

let's just say there's a young person that gets elected to congress like, well, i wouldn't want to -- yes, i would thr think there are some members of the new class that would fit very close to that category, would one think they would come in here at age 25 and transition from their parents' health insurance on over to the federal opportunity of health insurance that one can access and pay their share of the premium that comes with this job working in this congress? and maybe never have a window where they were responsible to go out on the marketplace and buy their own health insurance. i think that's actually a bad idea. but if people want it, let them drive that through their states. some will say that we want to have pre-existing conditions so that children cannot be denied insurance on a policy that their parents have. well, that's a good idea. and it's one that can be sustained by demand in the marketplace and if that doesn't do it can certainly be sustained by mandates within the states. but it does not require, madam speaker, it does not require

that the federal government get involved and mandating to the states, actually mandating everybody in america what shall be done with insurance. and so now i've used up the two things that had some popularity in obamacare. that's it. 26-year-old insurance and no denial of pre-existing -- because of pre-existing conditions to children whose parents have a policy. but if i want to go out and buy a policy that ensures that my children could stay on it, that policy is available in the marketplace. i will say this, before obamacare wrecked the markets, crove out a number of health insurance -- drove out a number of health insurance company, we had 1,300 health insurance companies in this country, viable in the marketplace, competing, providing all kinds of policy varieties for customers to choose from. in fact, over 100,000 health insurance policy varieties, 1,300 companies, 100,000 policy varieties. we had competition. obamacare has driven out

competition. it's not added to it. it's driven out competition. it's made it harder. it's driven up costs of health care. the indecision and the fear of what's happening has caused the entire health care industry to be frozen in place and now they come along and say, well, if you're not going to repeal it, can you accommodate me in some way? perhaps like grant them a waiver. i'm hearing individual says, i want my waiver. they know that there have been 1,040 waivers to obamacare. madam speaker, i know there are people out there who are listening who maybe don't know what that means. here's this. obamacare is the law of the land. it is imposed upon everyone in america, a law is to be applied to every individual in an equal fashion. i meat mean, we might sit in different categories, we might have medicare that applies differently to somebody 65 than it does to somebody 60 years old. but waivers to statutes, to

entities, individuals and entities that from my standpoint it's unheard of. where that authority came from, i did not see that coming. but this administration has found out that they pushed the law that's so bad, so bad that they are granting waivers to companies, to entities, entire states like the state of maine and now we find out that one of the people who has taken credit for helping to write obamacare, the gentleman from new york, who i believe is a candidate for the mayor of new york city, now is calling for a waiver for the city of new york to obamacare. so maybe if he gets his way that won't be 1,040, it will be 1,041 waivers. that's appalling to think that you would sit in a strategy meeting and session and try to drive a policy that i believe is flat out socialized medicine and argue that it's good for everybody in america because

they're too ignorant to take care of their own health care and now find out that the policy is so ignorant you want a waiver from it for the largest city in america. that's appalling. to think that that would happen. 1,040 waivers. 1,040 waivers. let me see. the i.r.s. will enforce this. punish people with an extra penalty if they don't comply. the easy formula, the easy form for an i.r.s. is the 1040-ez. we've had 1040 waivers, 1,040 waivers, it's easy for them, madam speaker, but it's not going to be easy for anyone who doesn't get a waiver. we have this thing called the equal protection clause. it's been in the constitution, the 14th amendment. everybody's going to be protected with equal protection. obamacare itself violates the equal protection clause because it gives some american citizens a different standard than others. and i'm thinking of florida,

their medicare advantage, which they have an exemption from under obamacare, even though the cornhusker kickback was removed because actually nebraskans rejected it, to their great credit, floridians didn't reject their exemption so that they kept their advantage, that was an existing policy that exempted them from the wipeout of medicare advantage that happened to people like iowans, for example. equal protection clause, not hardly. it's a violation of the equal protection clause. it's an unconstitutional bill, of obamacare. but i forget to tell -- forgot to tell you, madam speaker, all the reasons why it's bad. it cannot be afforded, it's a $2.6 trillion total outlays for the first full 10 years once it would be implemented. and it increases taxes almost to that much over that period of time. it cuts medicare which is going to have a huge increase from $40 million to $70 million -- 40 million to 70 million recipients of medicare, it cuts medicare

$532 billion. it purports to reform medicare, this cut we know has to actually happen, it just simply calculates it into the c.b.o. score. obamacare cannot be -- we can't afford it. it's unsustainable, therefore it will reduce the research and development, it will increase lines and delays and it will ration care and it will take that care out of the cost of many people and put it on a mandate that will force more into medicaid. and there will be companies that will be forced off of the coverage they now provide for their employees and force those people onto a program that's federally subsidized where there is a fund that will fund their health insurance premiums which is also unaffordable. all these things are bad. there's so many bad things about obamacare think a don't think there's any one person in the country that can stand up in 30 minutes and list all of the bad things about obamacare.

it boils down, though, to this, it's unaffordable, it's unsustainable, it reduces research and development, it reduces the quality and lengthens the line, it delays the service, it rations the care , it takes away one more thing, the most important thing about obamacare is this, i believe it is an unconstitutional taking of american liberty. it's unconstitutional in a number of ways. three or four ways at least. and american liberty is something that is precious and to think that the federal government would step in and commandeer, ewe certain the god-given liberty and right that we have to manage our own health care and turn it into a rationed service according to formula that only government would decide who would get what service and when and who would be on the waiting list for surgery and who would be on the waiting list to die without

surgery, that is a result of obamacare and cannot be argued or refuted. they put you on a waiting list for a hip replacement or they put you on a waiting list to die without. that's one of the things that happens. they don't seem to think that's what they're doing willfully and i don't accuse them of willfully wanting to do that. it's the consequence of the fiss cal action of people who believe there is a socialist model to produce their version of utopia rather than the individual dynamics that come from people that have free choices. but we're a vigorous people. we're a unique people. we're the kind of people that recognize from the beginning that our rights come from god, we're endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights, and among them are life, liberty and the pu suit of happiness. that pursuit of happiness wasn't the pursuit of heedenism, it was

the pursuit of perfection. just the pursuit of perfection. most intellectual and physical improvements. that's the pursuit of happiness in the greek form and that's what our founding fathers understood. we're a unique, vigorous people that -- with rights that come from god and of all of the things that flow through with this, these rights, many of them laid out in our bill of rights, freedom of speech, religion and the press, freedom to peaceably assemble and petition the government for redress of grievances, the freedom to -- the right to keep and bear arms. . property rights in the 5th amendment, trial by jury, to be tried by a jury of your peers and the right and protection against double jeopardy, the rights that are endo youed to the states and then the people respectively in the 9th and 10th

amendment, all of that are unique things to americans and don't apply to western european democratic socialist states. they don't apply to people in canada, mexico or any place else on this planet. these rights, as understood a envisioned by our founding fathers apply only to americans and they are the foundation, they are the foundation of why americans are a unique and vigorous people and they are the foundation of why we are the unchallenged greatest nation in the world and we have unique vigor and that comes from the foundation of these rights. but madam speaker, i would take the position that you could take all of these rights that we have that we identify as coming from our creator, from god, and you could bestow them upon any other

people on the planet and ask them to build a vigorous society that would match and mirror that of america, and i will submit that that effort would fail. it would fail no matter if they had unlimited natural resources, if they had free enterprise to no independent, reference to the constitution the way we do, take this package of american rights and put it in the richest country in the world or the poorest and offer it to any people on the planet and i would submit they could not succeed in producing another country that has the vigor and success that this country has. i'm not taking credit for this, but standing here giving refer rens to this gift that we have as america. and i will continue that, of all the rights that are the foundations of those beautiful marble pillars of american

exceptionalism and property rights that go along with it, freedom of speech, religion, the press and the list goes on, there is one other component that no other nation can have -- there is one other component that no other nation can have, and that is the unique vigor of the american people. and we are a people that have been blessed by the vigor of every contributing, every donor civilization on the planet, no matter the country. the legal immigrants that came here to the united states came here with the vision of the american dream. they were attracted to the vision of the american dream and so we were able to by good sets of circumstance, thought and vision, skim the cream of the

crop off of every civilization. people that had a dream, ambition, wanted to test themselves and build something that went beyond their generation, people wanted to leave the world a better place than it was when they found it and people who wanted to prepare the ground for the next generation to farm, so to speak, and in some cases, literally, these are the people that we got that came to america from every country, whether it would be england or scotland or wales, poland, germany or italy, all across asia, all across central and south america, people that had a vision that they wanted to live free and breathe free and build something and have children and grandchildren that could benefit from their labors and their vision and their

creativity and entrepreneurial nature, they came to america and that set up a natural filter, a natural filter for people to save up enough money and to get passage to come to the united states. some of them sold themselves for as long as seven years of labor just to pay the passage to get here, that's a dream. you don't get calls like that. you get people who are vigorous and that's the american spirit. this vigorous american spirit is totally unsuitable for a social democracy or socialism or hard core leftist communist marxism or those that emerged from the non-english speaking countries and they permeated the globe and not built on the truths of human nature, nor are they built on our rights coming from god.

so here we are in this country, fantastic that we are the recipients of such gifts. and gifts that we have and the vigor that we have, we need to understand what it's rooted in and it's rooted in these freedoms and rooted in the filter, the filter that filtered out people that wanted to come here but didn't quite have the ambition to make it happen. it was hard to get here and wanted to have a dream to come here. and when we came here, we respected hard work and smart work and people who planned and invested and they were rewarded and admired them. how many people like donald trump today, even though -- i don't have any anything to say bad about donald trump. bill gates, steve jobs, they admire them because they have been successful because they have been entrepreneurs, creative and worked within the

free market system and improved the quality of our lives and lowered the cost of the services that we need for our quality of life to be upheld and made those contributions and gotten rich in the process. that's the free enterprise system. so here wer these vigorous people and some of the nanny state advocates here in this congress, the majority of them last year decided they wanted to impose obamacare on us and take away our personal vigor. they wanted to take over the responsibility of managing our health care. what they finally did was, because obamacare is right now the law of the land, nationalized our skin and everything inside it, a government takeover of my body. the government took my body over and the body of 308 million americans and now they're going to tell us when we get health care, under what conditions we

get health care that we must have their health insurance policy that they prescribe for us and taken away our individual responsibility. they have nationalized our skin and everything inside it and they had the audacity and the president is fond of that word, audacity, president of the united states had to impose 10% tax if you go into a tanning salon to turn yourself a little browner. that is a reach of the nanny state to impose a tax. they wanted to tax your nondiet coke and manage our lifestyles in such a way they'll tax us if we eat fast foods and then i presume we should get a discount if we eat healthy foods. this is a nanny state personified. obamacare is so bad and bad because of all the things i

listed, cost, quality, rationality but the worst part is, it is an unconstitutional taking of american liberty. it takes from us the ability, the right, to manage our own health care, and it must go. and when that legislation was passed and signed into law, i believe the anniversary date was march 23 of this year, i laid awake most of the night and slept a little bit and got up in the middle of the night to draft a piece of legislation to repeal obamacare. it was waiting at the door of the service team to be formally put into the form of a bill when they opened up that morning. very interestingly, congresswoman michelle bachmann of minnesota had done the same thing and her legislation came down within three minutes of mine, exactly the same 40 words

that said, going to repeal obamacare and as if it had never been enacted, the last words in the bill. 40 words, repeal obamacare, gives the name of the bill, numbers of the bill, the last line, as if it had never been enacted. rip it out by the roots, madam speaker. that wasn't necessarily unheard of, but there aren't many presidents in the history of congress for repeal legislation to be filed, actually, actually the next day after a huge piece of legislation has been passed. but that is what we did. and we started dounch that -- down that path immediately working to get signatures on the bill and building up support to repeal obamacare and by the end of the 111th congress going into the election is the only part that counted, 173 signatures on my discharge petition, people

who wanted to see obamacare repealed come to the floor, bypass the committee process, bring it to the floor for a vote. 173. we needed 218. and the message that went out across america was useful in that some members of congress who are here today will say straight up they wouldn't be here if it were not for the discharge petition and challenge their opponent to sign it and almost every democrat refuse todd do so and now there are 87 new freshmen republicans. every single one has run on the repeal of obamacare and run on defounding obamacare and i know that every single republican in the house of representatives voted for h.r. 2, which is the repeal of obamacare. i know every single republican in the united states senate voted to repeal obamacare. the language we generated then

is the language that emerged into h.r. 2. and today, every republican and some democrats are on record voting to repeal obamacare. and now that didn't stop there. the strategy that i put together almost a year ago was this, that we needed to win the majority, which we did, bring the repeal of obamacare, which we did. didn't succeed in the united states senate, but behind that always was this majority here in the house of representatives has an obligation to cut off all funding that would be used to implement or enforce obamacare. and i have been consistent with that language all the way through last summer into last fall and past the election and beyond, repealing obamacare and cut off the funding, stop the implementation of obamacare and stop the enforcement of it by shutting off the budget dollars and hold this waste of money to

this unconstitutional bill of obamacare until we can elect a president who will sign the repeal. the date for that to happen in my strategy is january 20, 2013, madam speaker. and that's the date that the next president of the united states will be inaugurated out here on the west portico of the capitol building. when that president stands there and takes the oath of office, it's my vision and dream and my commitment to work towards it, i'm going to ask him, take your oath of office with penny in hand mr. president-elect and i'm going to ask you to preserve, protect and defend the constitution the constitution of the united states so help you god and once that statement is made, completed and the oath of office is finished and formally the president of the united states and before he shakes the

hand of the chief justice roberts, i want his pen in hand to come down and sign the repeal of obamacare right there on the podium on the west portico of the capitol right out there as the first act of the next president of the united states. that's my vision, that's my commitment. but until then, shutting off funding to obamacare is a must-do. and most of america knows by now there were $1050.5 billion automatically appropriated in a deceptive way by the way the bill was drafted up in nancy pelosi's office, not going through committee or the will of this congress but drafted in her office and dropped on us and no time to inform the american people what was in it, automatic, unprecedented in scope to the tune of $105.5 billion and already it

automatically appropriated in the 2010 budget, plus -- that's $18.6 billion. $4.95 billion totals up to $23.6 billion almost all of it set aside so the purposes of implementing obamacare and we must have a showdown and face the president down. if the president demands that obamacare be funded, do we say no that would otherwise fund all of government and if president obama does that and harry reid continues to perform as his proxy and shuts off anything we send that way, even though we demonstrated our desire to keep the legitimate functions of government all of it functioning, the president shuts it down or harry reid shuts it down and this government shuts down, here's the irony. lights would go out in federal offices. not all of them because essential services will keep

going. as the lights go out and non-essential federal offices, what will be going on? obamacare will continue in a government shutdown to be implemented because there is $23.6 billion to implement obamacare and we could have shutdown after shutdown as obamacare is implemented and we must hold the line and stand on this principle. it is our obligation. it is unconstitutional. we take an oath to uphold the constitution and that includes upholding the constitution and oppose parts of it that are at our disposal. the president and the president planned to shut this government down. that's why they agreed to a continuing resolution in december that funds the government until march 4. it was to bring this to a head, they wanted to box us into a corner and then blame

republicans for shutting the government down. it's real clear. republican leadership wants to avoid a shutdown. it's clear to me that democrats are determined to provide a shutdown and try to blame it on republicans. and it's clear to me that if we fund all the functions -- functions of government except obamacare and if the president brings about a shutdown it won't be the house republicans, it will be harry reid as proxy for the president. if that happens what we're going to see happen here is the president of the united states could veto an appropriations bill that funds everything except obamacare. it would be a presidential executive tantrum that he would be throwing, that tantrum that he'd be throwing would be saying this, that his signature piece of legislation, obamacare, means more to him than all of the other legitimate functions of government combined. that's the scenario that we are in, the american people will

render a verdict when that day comes, if there is that kind of a showdown and it must come. the american people will render a verdict, they will side with us, they're not going to side with the president who's imposed obamacare on 62% of american -- that 62% of americans want to repeal. only 24% want to keep it in any kind of a vigorous way. so, madam speaker, i'll say this , we have an obligation to stand and hold our ground, this showdown will come, it must come, if it doesn't we'll be capitulating to the president in every way that he's willing to fight. i say stand our ground now, let's have this fight now, let's get it over with and get on with the business of the 112th congress with that, mr. speaker, and i'm -- and without -- excuse me, miami, i would yield back the balance of my time -- me, madam speaker, i would yield back. the speaker pro tempore: the gentleman yields back. under the speaker's announced policy of january 5, 2011, the chair recognizes the gentleman

from new mexico, mr. pearce, for 30 minutes. mr. pearce: thank you, mr. speaker. we appreciate the opportunity to address the body tonight. as one of the few combat veterans in the u.s. congress, i rise to express deep concerns about what we are doing in libya at this moment. mr. speaker, we have committed the u.s. taxpayers and we've committed u.s. troops to engage in almost a decade having been involved with one of those long overseas engagements before in vietnam. i know that the strain that these actions place on our families and on our young soldiers and i don't think that the administration has adequately sought out what we are doing -- thought out what we are doing and what we're asking

the taxpayers of this country to do and the young people of this country to do, engaging in yet a third front with questionable ideas and questionable values at the heart of why we're engaging in the discussion. i've been an ardent supporter of the war on terror. i believe that we're going to be committed to the war regardless if it is there, in their backyard, or in our backyard. but i rise tonight to say that i'm adamantly opposed to extending our forces in any further that what we've already extended them without asking our allies to provide their tax money and to put the lives of their young people on the line. the entire world is benefiting from the sacrifices that this

country is making to establish order and to establish some modicum of peace in regions that are not given naturally to stutch -- such. and since the world benefits and the world has a responsibility so i think the president should be calling on you are a allies -- our allies to fund the nato missions and to provide the people, the personnel and the weapons and yet as i look at a breakdown of the missions that have been thrown and fought so far, i find the dominance of u.s. cost in lives, in hours, monetary resources and in morale . as a veteran i find it disturbing that we are in two wars and now intervening in a third with no end in sight. our mission is unclear. having served in vietnam at a

time when our nation was beginning to withdraw support for that war and remembering being there in those countries when funding was made short and gasoline and fuel was taken from missions in order to fly combat missions, i remember with dismay a nation that was not fully supporting the combat troops. i find these actions to be questionable on behalf of our commander in chief as it regards libya. despite his speech last night, president obama simply raised more questions. he explained that america is different. i'm not certain of exactly how that rational applies -- rationale applies to putting men and women in harm's way. i don't think this is a deep enough explanation. what is the time frame?

the president has yet to clarify. are we there to enforce a no fly zone? then let our friends and neighbors in the u.n., the united nations, enforce the no-fly zone. if we're there to enforce a no-fly zone, why then are we bombing ground troops? they don't affect the no-fly zone. if the goal is to protect civilians, why did secretary clinton meet with the rebel leader in london? why has secretary clinton calling for mr. gaddafi to step down if we're only enforcing a no-fly zone and protecting civilians? this war is going to go back and forth and already you see our leaders wondering if we can be out by the end of the year and i wonder if we can be out by the end of the decade. now make no mistake about it, if

libya had done something to harm us, to put our troops in danger, i would be 100% supportive but i question extending us and our troops to one more war zone. why are we fighting a war that secretary of defense, robert gates, said bear noes strategic interest to the u.s. and does not jeopardize our national security? why are we working on the side of the rebels? their own commander has stated that al qaeda members who fought our troops in iraq are now fighting mr. gaddafi. in libya we're working with the same people we're trying to kill in afghanistan. not only that, but it looks like we're arming those same troops and i worry that our armament supplies to troops in libya will show up in the fight against americans in afghanistan and

iraq. as a combat veteran, i find these concerns to be deeply disappointing in an administration who for nearly two weeks could not point to whether nato, the u.s., france or the united kingdom was in charge. this is poor management, a management i saw during the vietnam war, with little sense of purpose and always a confusion about exactly why we were there. and how long we would stay. humanitarian missions are admiral, however sending troops in to combat with no apparent overarching mission is dangerous . every one in this room remembers somalia in 1993. why are we singling out libya? there's a war going on on the

ivory coast right now. saudi troops have cracked down on protesters in bahrain with civilian deaths reported, not a whisper of american intervention there. according to the genocide intervention network, since 2009 almost a million people have been displaced in ongoing fighting in the democratic republic of the congo. 5.6 million civilians are estimated killed since 1996. are we going to intervene there? saddam hussein killed hundreds of thousands of his own people using mustard gas and other weapons. the president was totally opposed as a senator to that war , despite the fact that it had congressional authorization and yet here he is leading us into this new conflict. the president needs to consider the fact that the mission is unclear, despite his speech last night. he needs to realize that america cannot intervene in wars where

we face no threat to our national security and have no strategic interest. he should listen to his secretary of defense. as we engage in this yet third conflict, we're going to continue to put budget pressure on a budget that is straining beyond belief. in this country, the greatest threat that we face right now is a mounting national debt that is almost $15 trillion, almost the equivalent to our entire gross domestic product. at the time when we're extending more resources -- expending more resources and more dollars in a conflict that has to be yet determined as to its scope, purpose and length, we're straining our budget even further and while we are conducting these outside forces

to greater costs to our u.s. government, we're conducting a war on the west in this country and choking the west of jobs right now. so at a time when the cost to our government is increasing, we're choking down the tax resources by simply regulating and taxing jobs out of existence . in the past 10 days, most of us were at home, at work in our districts, i like everyone else made a lot of miles in the last 10 days. we drove almost 1,300 miles and did 20 and 30 and 40 events, meeting with people and listening to their concerns and everywhere we heard the same concern. what are you doing about jobs? and my sad report had to be that this government instead of creating jobs is in fact choking off jobs. this government is in fact making it impossible for

employers to bring on new laborers to expand the work force and create that sense of prosperity that this nation has always had available to it. and people would ask why? and they'd also ask how. how is our government choking off jobs? they find it incredit white house. they don't want to believe me when i say that in our speeches to begin with. how is our government choking off jobs? so i use as an example the forest service. this nation used to have a vibrant logging industry, a timber industry that employed hundreds of thousands. just into mexico, a very small state -- just in new mexico, a very small state, over 20,000 people made their living in the timber industry in new mexico. today no one makes their living in the timber industry in new mexico. over 20 mills have been idled. the wood cutters and the choppers no longer have work.

our mountain communities that used to depend on logging now depend on tourism which is a very distant second as it provides incomes for our families to live and pay their bills on. our government put an entire industry out of work in the 197s to with a program, with a regulation based around the spotted owl. the theory was that if we wanted to protect the to owl, we had to limit all of the activity in the forest. so we simply killed the forest -- the timber cutting jobs in our national forests across this country and nowhere did it hit harder than in new mexico. our government said you can no longer go into the forests and cut trees, we're going to reserve the entire amount of land for the spotted owl and an industry was killed overnight. . right now in new mexico,

oil and gas industry hires 23,000 people who now work for oil and gas. we provide energy for much of the world -- excuse me, much of the country. and yet, those jobs now are at risk because the fish and wildlife service just recently announced that they're going to list the lizard as an endangerered species. keep in mind that this lizard is seen everywhere, but when people ask me what is so significant about this lizard. i tell them, well, you can't count the lizards out there, you have to raise them up and count the number of scales between the elbow and the shoulder underneath their arm and the endangerered lizard has one less scale or one more scale, i'm not sure which, than the other

lizards and people are saying, wait. your government would kill our jobs over one scale under a lizard's arm? his front leg? and they are aghast that with 9.5% unemployment that our government would be undertaking such punitive ways of interpretting the endangerered species act. now, my belief is we can keep the spotted owl alive and cut timber and might have an health year forest so we have introduced a bill that yes we want to keep the spotted owl alive and keep 1,000 acres over there, but in one million acres, we are going to allow logging for a few decades.

have the opportunity for jobs. but even more than that as we cut trees, new mexico is a very arid climate. they would burn the trees down to where there were only 50 per acre. scattered forests and scattered trees. you could visualize how many 50 per acre is. that would be widely spaced. and when the rains would come, the water would soak in and recharge the al qaeda which fers around our -- awe which fers around our stream. they are now crowded from 50 trees per acre to 2,500 trees per acre and the streams are dry because the trees use up much more water than the grasslands and instead of coming down, the water is soaked up by the trees

and transpired into the atmosphere causing our communities to be out of water, rivers running dry and jobs are gone, all in the name of the spotted owl, i believe a reasonable society can create jobs and that's the purpose of my bill. but before we go and rescue an industry from the past, we have to fight the fight to keep american oil being produced here because the american lizard has the potential to shut down all of the oil and gas job in a three-county region and maybe even across the united states. that is unclear. we have people showing up in large numbers to demonstrate against a government that is becoming too insensitive, too concerned about the hypothetical and not a concern enough about people who are struggling to make ends meet. we find citizens who are simply

aghast that this government would be killing jobs at a time when our economy is struggling so bad. and at the very time that we are struggling to keep our industry alive from some nameless bureaucrat, we find our president going to south america to see what he can do to invigorate an oil industry there. my friends, this is a time for us to produce american jobs and american energy. now, i believe that we can produce energy and protect the species. i believe that we can produce energy and keep our environment clean. and i believe we can produce american jobs while protecting species, the environment, workers. i believe we can do it all and i believe americans insist that we do it. they don't want to see the

species extinct, but nor do they want jobs shipped overseas in the name of some value they don't quite understand. now, the truth is that where we have stopped logging, the trees are too dense for the spotted owl and right across the street in the indian reservation and log at their own will and have been logging, the spotted owl likes that habitat, they jump off the street and overtake the rodents and whatever else and so the habitat we were trying to protect actually is simply not suitable now and moving over next door. and we have done this in the name of some science that has never been made clear to us and similar to what's going on with the lizard. going to list some species that

has no d.n.a. difference between the five-ring lizard, six-scale lizard and seven-scale lizard, i suspect that is a mutation rather than a d.n.a. difference. i suspect there is no science on it. we joined with our people in our district to say to the government, enough is enough. you are making promises with our money you can't keep. you are committing us to more wars and committing the taxpayer to a higher burden, at the same time you are causing definedling jobs and people are saying enough. we saw in the last election, a turnout of incredible magnitude of people saying that the government is not listening and we don't care about what the government is doing any more, the frustration is deeper and deeper and i encourage that because i believe the only hope in turning back a government

that is too strong, a government that does not care, a government that is willing to take jobs from its people, a government that is willing to commit our troops anywhere in the world in the name of whatever vague policy they have is a government that is out of control. this needs to return to be a government of the people, by the people and for the people. we have set up on our web page places where you can go and make comment to the government. you can call our office here and make those comments and we will relay those comments for you. to understand that we are in a fight for the future of this nature and a fight for our economy and the debatest economy is the government itself. the government intervenes in the ways that it has no constitutional authority. the government intervenes with increasing tax policies so that even our president said in the

state of the union message that we are too highly taxed in our corporations and we need to get that in control. let our president get that in control. we will vote gladly for such tax decreases here on the floor of this house in order to ensure that jobs are created. the greatest reason that jobs are going overseas are two, taxation policy and regulation policy. regulations like the spotted owl or the listing of the list ard -- lizard, choking down of our financial system by the regulators who are going into banks and scaring them by threats of fines. we are choking our economy down in the name of safety and security and achieving neat they are. the sad thing -- neither is. the sad thing is we could cure our economic ills if we simply

grow the economy. ackturel -- actuarial tables tell us if we have 3.5% rate of growth that our economic problems in the states and in this government began to disappear and you would ask if 3.5% possible. that's exactly the rate we have averaged for the last 75 years. but today, because of our policies of overtaxation, overregulation, our unfriendlyness to business in general, we find ourselves stuck at 1% to 1.5% rate of growth. pressures on social security, medicare, medicaid, finding the pressure of the $15 trillion debt, finding the pressure of $1.5 trillion deficits. in order to meet those pressures, our federal reserve is printing more and more money and seeing prices skyrocket. when jobs are scarce and people

are worried about the future, prices of vegetables and gasoline, gold, silver and iron is going up, not because their value has increased, but because the value of your dollar is decreasing and printing so many. and even then we are still having increased pressure. we find the japanese aren't going to be able to lend us money. they were large buyers of our treasury bill, meaning they were loaning the government money. not for a long time. china is beginning to decrease its holding of treasury bills. and we are hearing these vague messages that our japanese, chinese, our own citizens think our economy is out of control and our debt and deficits are out of control and they are saying we aren't going to lend you any more and the federal

reserve then prints money. that's an avenue that some of the worst economies in the world have pursued. in argentina last year, argentina had a rate of inflation at 1500% and if you began the year with $1.5 million, at the end of that year, you had about $100,000 and end of next year, under $10,000. two years, if you had a nest egg and retirement, it will be of no value. that's the path that argentina chose and it's the path we are beginning to choose, endless deficits, endless debt, will bankrupt us with no reasonable explanation and it's that situation that the american taxpayer faces today. it's that situation that causes

me to say that america has done enough. american soldiers are done enough, american taxpayers have done enough. let our friends come to the table and letor friends begin to shoulder their share of the burden. meanwhile, let us cut the spending here in washington. we can cut many ways without cutting the actual outcomes to people. we have due apply indicate agencies, waste, fraud and abuse. cut those, but on the other hand, begin to grow our economy and create jobs and industries that used to be here, industries that would start up overnight. these aren't 10 and 20-year plans, these are ideas that can begin immediately. the people will begin to work in the forest immediately if we would let them. they would begin to drill wills again. offshore, we could get our deep

water platforms to working once again, those eyedled by a government that is too powerful and has shut down over 100,000 jobs offshore. these are the reasons we are having the economic difficulties that we do. when we have difficulties as the world's largest economy, the germans said it best, when the u.s. sneezes economically, you give the rest of the world flu. if we set about creating american jobs, producing american energy, american timber, american manufactured goods up and down the economic spectrum, we can cure not only our economy, but cure the world's economy. and i believe we're going to do that. i believe that because the american people are beginning top stand and insist on it. their insistence is patient. their insistence is respectful, but insistence nonetheless that has no waveror quiver to it and

says fix the problem come to this city of washington and vote not like republicans or democrats but like americans and when we begin to do that in this body, i believe the american people will come together and support us in rekindling that greatness that lies within this country, that american exceptionalism that people for generations have come here to find, leaving everything behind, leaving families, culture, language behind and have come here for generations to find those words, opportunity and hope, which have been so deeply engrained in the fab brick of this nation and -- fabric of this nation and that is what we should be engaged in in this body. i would yield back the balance of my time and thank you.

the speaker pro tempore: the speaker pro tempore: does the gentleman move that we adjourn? mr. pearce: yes, i would move that we adjourn for the evening. the speaker pro tempore: the question is on the motion to adjourn. those in favor say aye. those opposed, no. the ayes have. it the motion is adopted. accordingly the house stands

freedom, explored their wealth, murdered opponents at home in the terrorize innocent people are around the world. >> followed with key leaders are saying about libya and how they process has unfolded from the house and senate floor all online at the c-span video

library. >> in libya tuesday the u.s. struck a missile storage facility near tripoli while forces loyal to muammar gaddafi drove back levels -- drove back rebels. representatives met to discuss how to deal with libya. william hague and killian -- hillary clinton spoke with reporters. mr. haig is first. >> good afternoon. this has been a very important day for the future of libya. we have seen two key developments. foreign minister is and leaders from 40 countries including the un, arab league, european union and nato met at the conference on libya.

i will list our key conclusions in a moment but we have deepened the coalition with a new pledge of support for nato operations, a growing number of countries committed to implementing the un resolutions and an international contact group on libya. the transition national council -- their vision for a future libya that is free and unified. we have said we want the libyan people to be in the lead in determining their future. it comes at a time when the forces of the gaddafi regime continue to shell their people in a brutal manner underlining what our efforts to protect citizens will continue. i have a copy of a memo we

receive from a member of the local council thinking britain and our allies for the enforcement of the no-fly zone and coming to the aid of the libyan people in their most needy of hours. he says the local council can testify to the accuracy of those strikes and concerns there has not been a single case of civilian industry. he goes on to salute the men and lives on the line saying we are forever grateful. my colleague the prime minister is one of our key allies in implementing the security council resolution. this country has shown commitment at political

gatherings like these. we welcome the fact that qatar has agreed to foes -- host the first meeting. before i turn over to him i wanted to draw your attention to some of the key conclusions of these meetings that are set out in documents supplied for you. reaffirmed swift implementation of the un security council and territorial integrity and national unity of libya. we have agreed to consider additional sanctions associated with the regime. participants are implementing these measures at a clear message to gaddafi he cannot attack civilians. we will implement the military actions mandated by the security

council resolution. the action we have taken as protected countless of civilians aireyiping out gaddafi's capability. participants pay tribute to military personnel from all of the coalition. the potential contributors to military operations had a separate meeting as part of the conference. we reaffirmed our support for this course of action. we welcome that nato's contribution in agreeing to take control of all military operations to enforce the no- fly zone and other actions needed to protect civilians. participants have reaffirmed the clear conditions must be met under the resolution including

the establishment of a cease- fire and full humanitarian access to those in need. we agreed to continue our efforts until those conditions are fulfilled. the libyan regime will be judged by action and not its words. we agreed that gaddafi has completely lost legitimacy and will be held accountable for their actions. we recognize the need for all people to come together to begin a political process. we call on the international community to support that process working with the secretary general. participants today expressed their concern for the well-being of 80,000 displaced people.

we noted the offer to facilitate the sale of libyan oil consistent with international law and provisions of the relevant resolutions and to support the people of libya to use proceeds to meet humanitarian needs. participants agreed to establish the libya contact group. it will meet to provide the leadership and political direction for the international efforts in coordination with the un, organization of the islamic conference and european union to provide a forum for coordinating the international response and provide a focal point for contact with the libyan. qatar agreed to confirm the first meeting of the group. the north atlantic council

meeting alongside its partners will provide the executive political direction for naval operations. participants will come to you and secretary general's offer to lead the humanitarian assistance in planning for longer-term stabilization support. turkey has offered to support this work and take it forward with the contact group. we are united in our aid, in seeking a libya that does not pose a threat to its own citizens. in working with the people of libya as they choose their own way forward to a stable future. thank you very much. i invite the prime minister and foreign minister to speak. >> thank you very much. i would like to say that we thank britain for this conference which has become a

very important conference because that shows the solidarity of the allied and more countries to join his coalition. it is a sad moment but with hope for the future. a sad moment of what we see in libya that we need to try to intervene in a country which belongs to the arabs. but we as arabs want the international community to try to not let the libyan people [unintelligible] they are using all the heavy machines to kill their protesters and their own people.

we hope this will finish as soon as possible. hope that the people will decide how they would like to run their country. we participate in the humanitarian side. they are doing the mission at the moment as we talk now. think we recognize this -- the people of libya will decide. this conference was good to evaluate what has been done the last few days from the military action and what we can do. our people are urged to leave and nine impose any more

bloodshed. this is the only solution to solve this problem as soon as possible. we don't see any indication of that the this hope we offer might not be on the table after a few hours. i am trying to stop the bloodshed as soon as possible. >> thank you very much. we have time for a few questions. >> thank-you very much. do you fear it may not be possible to protect civilians from the air? did today's conference discussed the possibility of army the opposition they have requested or do you fear [unintelligible] >> we did not discuss this at the conference today. that was not one of the subjects

for discussion. all of which are designed to protect civilian life in libya but that was not on the agenda for discussion. this subject has been raised by the interim transitional national council but it is not of any agreement it. the u.k. takes into account resolutions on this. those resolutions apply to the whole of libya. although it is consistent with the security resolution to give people a in order to defend themselves, but we have not discussed any new decisions communicated about that. >> i look like to add to what

mr. williams says. we did not discuss this but our opinion is we have to evaluate the air after a while to see if it is effective to protect the people of libya. at that time the international community has to see what measure. we are not talking about invading libya or inviting any military ground but we have to evaluate the situation because we cannot let the people suffered for so long. we have to find a way to stop this bloodshed. we need to evaluate it sometime later. the microphone is on. >> are you concerned that

islamist me to give thems is of this revolution taking place -- are they taking advantage of this revolution taking place? >> they answer is the document that was published by the interim national council. the vision of a democratic libya, that is a document i was pleased to see and encourage them to release. it includes so many of the things we would like to see. many of the commitments would like to see about the future of libya including the formation of political policies, a genuine participation, freedom of expression and peaceful protest. it is the right document and the

right set of commitments for the future of libya. also talking about using science and technology for the betterment of society and the free private sector and an effective civil society. these are strong commitments and the right commitments from the opposition forces in libya. i think they often fear in putting this forward their plans having discussed them with their representatives and having talked to other representatives by telephone, i am sure that is sincere. we must never be complacent about the way events like this could turn out. a lot of the reasons it is necessary for the european union and the view of the prime minister and died to make a bold and ambitious and historic offer to the nations of this region is to act for a magnet for this

kind of positive change given that there is a danger. if things go wrong in the region on a sustained basis, there could be new opportunities for terrorism or extremism. we must not be complacent. i am sure that what we're doing to protect civilians and to encourage a political process in libya through which libyans can choose their own future government is the right way to combat those dangers of terrorism and extremism. >> i would like to add a little bit about extremism. this has happened part of it because of how we're dealing with the people in the middle east. this is in part put by the leaders because they want to stay in power. i think we should not look if there is a left or right people

or muslim brotherhood. we should look to them how they behave. if they behaved according to the international role, if they can do something better, if we're looking for a democracy, let the democracy decide who has come and take power. this has been used many times, if we want to go further, it is because of our mistakes. so we have also not to fear but to try to treat our mistakes and by leaving everyone to decide within one in their countries. -- what they want in their countries. >> thank you. the italian foreign minister just said you need to increase your political pressure on muammar gaddafi to step down and you're looking for countries to take -- for him to take refuge.

could you talk about what efforts your doing to increase the political pressure for him to step down? for the prime minister, the u.s. in particular and other nations of nato have asked for arab leadership and support for this effort which was a pretext for going to the un security council resolution. why do you think more arab nations have joined qatar and the uae in turning this coalition. do you expect more nations to join in the coming days? thank you. >> would you like to take that first? >> yes. when we went to the arab league, by enormous measure except one country, we decided to go to the security council and to ask for a no-fly zone. it was a big argument but we told them, what is the

alternative? to see the people killed or slaughtered or we have to go to the un. the other involvement is not so big or not so concrete. at least there is some arab countries participating and some participating in the conference. i hope it will increase and i hope the arab league have a mechanism to do these things to avoid these things happening and ask for international help. this is an internal error problem. we could not do it by ourselves but to show our identity in qatar, we joined the national committee. >> the question of gadhafi's stepping down. this meeting and the unity from such a wide variety of nations and the arab world and the prime minister has been talking about

the role and unity of the arab league but also representing the islamic conference and the un as well as the arab league, the european union. there is strong unity. the strong emphasis on what i was saying earlier. we all agree that gaddafi and his regime have lost legitimacy and will be held accountable for their actions. that is intensely strong international pressure for him to go. there is no future for libya with gaddafi in charge. libya were trying to hang on to power, that is clear. all these nations and organizations, we have made that clear today. >> [no audi[inaudible] we have the reference to the international criminal court.

we're not engaged in looking for somewhere tfor him to go. that does not exclude others from doing so. where is al jazeera? >> my first question, qatar was the first country to contribute and consider the national league and council [inaudible] are but countries from morocco to the gulf. other diplomatic efforts to get more contributions in this operation and you said there was a separate meeting between the current and potential contributors to the military operations. we have an idea of who is a

potential contributors in this operation? thank you. >> about the participation of the arabs. there is some arabs participating in the meeting in london here. i believe we're not trying to push the others to be part of it. we have some beliefs and our beliefs let us participate from day one and let us go to the gcc conference and ask for a no- fly zone. we asked for the meeting in the arab league and the arab league supported the idea of a no-fly zone. it is a process and to be legal we went to the security council. all this gathering here in london or in paris, it was about that. the people will not allow the international -- the international will not allow gaddafi to kill his people and

not allow what happened in libya. for us when we saw we saw the first few days, we thought this is a shame to stay inside and to say it is not our business. it is our business. the participation of arabs should be more serious. i am glad there is arab countries in the unity and it is taken seriously. this is the example, how we can cooperate between us and nato. between us and the un. this is the first coalition which it is demand but -- demanded by the arabs and libyans. it is not like any other coalition happened before. >> on the question of potential contributors. one of those at the meeting was within who had not contributed before but they announced today sweden -- and sweden is not a

nato country. participation with eight fighter aircraft and other logistical support, there are other countries that are currently discussing with us making a contribution to the military operation. they have to make their own announcement so it is not fair for me to make those announcements or anticipate those, they will make them in due course. the answer is the same. >> [inaudible] >> you will keep calling on gaddafi to go but you have been bombing him steadily for 10 days and he is showing no sign of budging. what is your next move? >> we have not been bombing him. we have been bombing the forces threatening the civilians of libya and so many different places. it is important to recognize we have achieved in that time. had we not pass the un resolution when we did, and act

on it so promptly, one week last saturday, it is likely that benghazi had been stormed. misrata would have fallen. potentially with great loss of life and humanitarian consequences. we have been engaged in this now for 10 days but in those 10 days, we have achieved a great deal and we have saved many lives. it does seem from all of today's activity in libya despite a third proclamation of a cease- fire or partial cease-fire yesterday, the regime may still embarked on prosecuting a war against the people of their own country. that means as you can tell from the statements i made on behalf of the conference, the

conditions of a cease-fire and an end to violence are not filled, our operations to protect the civilians in these locations will continue. it is important that unified commitment to them continuing is clear. in our statement today. and i think it is the regime that have to wonder and worry where that leads. the international community is robust and absolutely clear and united that we will continue on this course of action which has already saved some money lives and it looks like it will be necessary to save even more. that is worthwhile doing and is the right thing to do and it has been very strongly endorsed at the conference today. we're going to go now because secretary clinton will be with you shortly. we will give you a short break before she arrives. thank you very much indeed.

>> i apologize for my voice. good afternoon. i want to begin by expressing our gratitude to the prime minister and the foreign secretary and the entire government for hosting this important conference. i have concluded a full day of business covering an array of issues with a broad range of counterparts. i began the day with meeting with representatives of the libyan transitional national council to hear their perspective on the situation in libya. we talked about our efforts to protect civilians and to meet humanitarian needs and about the ongoing coalition military action in support of resolution

1973. we also discussed the need for a political solution and transition in libya. i reiterated the support of the u.s. on behalf of president obama for the legitimate aspirations of the libyan people and our commitment to helping them achieve those aspirations. i also have the opportunity to meet with prime minister cameron and foreign minister haig. i expressed gratitude for the leadership the united kingdom has shown in building an effective international response to the crisis. we consulted on the way forward. the military, political, and humanitarian dimensions. we discussed the events and broader trends across the middle east and north africa and our joint efforts in afghanistan and pakistan. i had the opportunity to consult with a number of other counterparts about libya.

today's conference is taking place at a moment of transition. as nato takes over as leader of the coalition mission, a mission in which the u.s. will continue to play an active supporting role. some of our coalition partners announced additional support and contributions today which we welcome. in addition to our joint military efforts, we discussed the need for progress in libya along the three non-military tracks. first, delivering humanitarian assistance, at second, pressuring and isolating the gadhafi regime through robust sanctions and other measures, and third, supporting efforts by of libyans to achieve the political changes they are seeking. we also agreed on a structure for decision making going forward on the military and political tracts. on the military side, we agreed the north atlantic council with coalition partners fully at the

table will be the sole provider of executive direction for nato operations. similar to the isaf approach for afghanistan. we agreed to establish a contact group to offer a systematic coordination mechanism and broad political guidance on the full range of efforts under resolutions 1970 and 1973. fromam sure you just heard the prime minister of qatar, they have agreed to host the meeting along with the u.k. i've had a chance to discuss a number of issues including syria. i expressed our condemnation of the repression of demonstrators. the violence and killing of civilians in the security forces. i discussed efforts that are undertaken by the organization

of the islamic conference, particularly our joint effort to pass a resolution that promotes tolerance and respect as well as for expression. oic reatly appreciate the bois hosting a meeting. i was able to consult on a number of regional matters including libya with the foreign minister of turkey. it was a full day for all of us. we came to london to speak with one voice in support of a transition that leads to a brighter future for the libyan people. i am pleased with the progress we have made today and in the days preceding it. and grateful for everyone who participated and in the broader effort in libya. we are making a lot of progress together and we could not do it unless we were representing the

international community as we are. with that, i would be happy to take your questions. >> our first question from andy quinn. >> in your meeting today, i was wondering, were you able to make concrete offers of assistance to them either through turning over the $33 billion in libyan funds the have been frozen or in discussing arms transfers? intelligence shows flickers of all qaeda in the libyan opposition. >> we have not made a decision about arming the rebels or providing arms transfers. there has not been any need to discuss that at this point. we did discuss nonlethal

assistance. we discussed ways of trying to enable the transition national council to meet a lot of their financial needs and how we could do that through the international community. given the challenges that sanctions pose but recognizing they're going to need funds to keep themselves going. we discussed a broad range of matters and certainly their presentation which some of you may have seen earlier today as to what kind of civil society and political structure they are trying to build in libya are exactly in line with what they said whether goals. their commitment to democracy and to a very robust engagement with people from across the spectrum of libyans is

appropriate. we do not have any specific information about specific individuals from any organization who are part of this but we are still getting to know those who are leading the transitional national council and that will be a process that continues. >> our next question. >> is it your understanding that the un resolution 1973 makes it illegal to supply arms to the libyan rebels or [unintelligible] it is striking when the rebels were talking.

they have access to a lot of funds through oil money. do you think they should be more transparent in terms of declaring who they are, where they're from, what kind of grouping the come from and how they're using the money? >> as to the first question, is our interpretation that 1973 amended or overrode the absolute prohibition of arms to anyone in libya so that there could be legitimate transfer of arms if a country were to choose to do that. as i said, we have not made that decision at this time. secondly, i do think that greater transparency will be expected and will be delivered. i think you have to put this into context. this is a very fast evolving but by no means settled structure

they are trying to build. they also claim to have a number of people who are willing to work with them from central and western libya who, for security reasons, cannot yet be named. i do think that this is a work in progress and just as with respect to the question, we do not know as much as we would like to know and as much as we expect we will know. we are picking up information. a lot of contact is going on not only by our government but many governments that are part of the coalition. we're building an understanding. at this time, it is a work in progress. >> thank you. i had a question regarding syria. you gave an interview where you

said how many members of congress feud president assaad as a reformer. is that your position because there has been well documented cases of syrian support for terrorist groups, allegations of pursuing weapons and some said syria opposes a greater threat to the u.s. and national security than libya does. is it the obama administration's position now that it can work with the president to instigate or initiate the reforms that people are calling for? thank you. >> first, i referenced opinions of others and that i was not speaking for myself or for the administration. we deplore the crackdown that is occurring in syria and we collin syria as we have throughout the last month to respect the rights of its citizens, to allow people to protest peacefully, to work toward political and

economic reform that would be to the benefit of the syrian people. there is no difference in how we view this and how we have viewed the other incredible sequence of actions we have seen in north africa and the middle east. we hope there is an opportunity for reform. we know there is an opportunity for reform in all these countries. we want to seek peaceful transitions and democracies that represent the will of the people. we are like the syrian people waiting and watching to see what comes from the syrian government. they dismissed the cabinet today which resigned en masse. we support the timely implementation of reforms that meet the demands that syrians are presenting to the government such as immediately

eliminating serious state of emergency laws which have been in effect for a long time. it is up to the syrian p to the leadership starting with president assaad to prove that it can be responsive to the needs of its own people. we are troubled by what we hear but we are also going to continue to urge that the promise of reform which has been made over and over again and which you reported on a few months ago, i am a reformer, i will reform and i talked to members of congress that we hear from the highest levels of leadership in syria. it will be turned into reality. that is what we're waiting and watching for. >> the final question. >> i wondered how you view the

situation in libya at the moment. there seems to be almost ping- pong going on and the rebels seem to be withdrawing from some areas today. evolving and how long do you see a lasting? if you are talking to gaddafi, what are his options? he can try and stay or he can face the icc. is there a third option where he could travel to another country? >> i think what we are seeing in the viet is a strengthening of the opposition, a consistent and persistent efforts by the opposition to try to hold ground, which they have had in -- and regain ground they have lost. we are seeing with the duthie and continuing pressure on the

rebels, on his people, a willingness to use force. we have reports of continuing military action by gaddafi's forces in misrata and elsewhere. this is a volatile, dynamic situation unfolding. we accomplished a lot in a short time. we clearly believe as president obama said we prevented a massacre in benghazi and we were able to stop the military advance that was moving rapidly from west to east and we sent a clear message to the international community's willingness to enforce a no-fly zone and protect civilians. kind of reckless behavior

toward his own people would not be tolerated. we are facing questions like the one to ask. i'm not sure we know when we will get to any change in attitude by gaddafi and those around him. as you know, there is a lot of reaching out that is occurring and a lot of conversations going on and as the arab league has said, it was obvious to everyone that gaddafi has lost the legitimacy to lead. we are trying to achieve that outcome. he will have to make a decision and that decision so far as we are aware has not yet been made. you probably know that the secretary general special envoy will be going to tripoli and benghazi once again to urge gaddafi to implement a real

cease-fire that is not going to be immediately be reached by his own forces, to withdraw from those areas that he has taken by force, and to look for a political resolution which could include his leaving the country. all of this is in play. many of the nations that were here in london today are working together to try to gather information, to share the impressions each has with the conversations that are coming from tripoli and those close to gaddafi about what is and is now being considered. i expect to see things continue to move in a positive direction but i cannot give you any sort of time line. that is not sensible at this point. we do not have enough information to do that. >> thank you very much.

for more than four decades, the libyan people have been ruled by a tyrant. muammar qaddafi. he has denied his people freedom, exploited their wealth, murdered opponents at home and abroad, and terrorize innocent people around the world. >> follow what key leaders are saying about libya and how the process has unfolded from the president and other officials, from the house and senate floor, and other leaders around the world all online at the c-span video library. search, watch, click, and share, any time. >> said debate on federal spending. we will hear from charles schumer and republican senator jeff sessions. in half an hour, house republican leader speak with reporters about budget

negotiations. after that, a hearing on civil rights for american muslims. >> a couple of live events to tell you about tomorrow. 3, looking into the city of power plants. members will hear from the head of the nuclear revelatory commission at 10:00 a.m. eastern. tonight, we will be live at 8:45 p.m. eastern. speakers are scheduled to include senator rand paul and anthony wiener and dan quayle of arizona. >> throughout april, we will feature the top winners of this year's student camp competition. nearly 1500 students submitted

documentary's on the theme, washington d.c. through my laens. during the program, meet the students who greeted them. stream the weddwinning videos ay time at c-span.org. >> eric kanter said if there is no agreement between republicans and white house when the current spending bill expires next friday, the house will not pass another short-term measure, a leading to a government shutdown. negotiations are continuing. charles schumer was on the floor saying a possible budget agreement was blocked by tea party supporters. his comments and response from republican senator jeff sessions are a half-hour. president. and i rise to speak on the current state of the bipartisan budget negotiations. for weeks now, the offices of the senate majority leader, the house speaker and the white

house have been engaged in serious talks seeking a long-term budget agreement. it's been a long, hard process. there have been a lot of fits and starts in the negotiations. but it's no exaggeration to say that as of last week, talks were on a smooth path toward a compromise. the speaker's office was negotiating in good faith. the parties significantly narrowed the $51 billion gap on how much spending should be cut. house republican leaders had agreed to come down from h.r. 1 and meet us halfway. we could begin to see the light at the end of the tunnel, but suddenly at the end of last week, the house republicans did a strange thing. they pulled back from the talks. they changed their minds about what level of spending cuts they could accept. we were right on the verge of a potential breakthrough, and they suddenly moved the goal posts. we felt a little bit like we were left at the altar.

and not only did they abandon the talks, they started denying that they were ever close to a deal in the first place. majority leader kantor issued a statement friday saying that reports that progress was being made were far-fetched. it was like they decided that even the appearance of a looming compromise was a political liability. it was surreal. it's no surprise what happened. the headline of today's story in "national journal" says it all -- quote -- "with revolt brewing, g.o.p. backs off deal." let me repeat that because that is really what's going on here in the news of the day and the last few days." with revolt brewing, "said the headline," g.o.p. backs off deal." the story reads -- quote -- "concerned about a revolt by conservative tea party wing of the party, g.o.p. leaders have

pulled back from attempting a deal to cut roughly $30 billion in cuts from current spending levels. the influence that tea party conservatives now exercise over the process put the chances of a compromise seriously in doubt." the story continues, madam president. -- quote -- "the g.o.p. pulled back from that agreement last week after majority leader eric kantor and majority whip kevin mccarthy warned house speaker john boehner that the deal would trigger a revolt from tea party conservatives." so, in other words, as soon as house republican leaders took one step towards compromise, the tea party rebelled, so they took two steps back. the "national journal" story describes an offer that was put on the table by the white house that would have met the house republicans halfway. the offer falls squarely in the

ballpark of congressman ryan's original budget proposal. with roughly $70 billion in spending cuts compared to the president's budget request. this is a significant move in the republicans' direction. these are more cuts than many on our side might support, but it shows how seriously the white house is about wanting a compromise to avert a shutdown. if they are planning to reject such an offer, then it's clear they won't take yes for an answer and are seeking a shutdown. the republican leadership in the house, with the tea party breathing down their back, won't take yes for an answer and won't support the original proposal made by budget chairman ryan of roughly $70 billion in spending cuts, and we know that congressman ryan is hardly a

liberal or a moderate. so it shows you how far to the right the republican leadership is being forced to move by the tea party. this level of spending cuts was good enough for house republicans earlier this year when hal rogers released -- rodgers released his earlier proposal. house republicans were forced to double their spending cuts to an extreme level of $61 billion. when that happened, even hal rodgers said the house was moving beyond what was reasonable and into territory where they could never get a deal. tom latham of iowa agreed that in forcing h.r. 1 to go from from $30 billion to $60 billion in cuts, the tea party was forcing republicans to go beyond what was -- quote -- "enact "enactable." these are conservative republicans saying that the present house proposal is not

enactable, cannot pass. just as the tea party forced mainstream republicans into extreme territory before, they are doing it again, and anyone who looks at this objectively sees that's what's happening. the speaker has said all along he wants to avoid a shutdown at all costs, and, madam president, i believe him. he's a good man. the problem is a large percentage of those in his party don't feel the same way. they think compromise is a dirty word. they think taking any steps to avert a shutdown would mean being the first to blink. so speaker boehner is caught between a shutdown and a hard place. he's caught a tiger by the tail in the form of the tea party. there is even a tea party rally planned for later this week to pressure the speaker not to

budge off h.r. 1, to try and mask the divisions on their own side, the republicans have resorted to lashing out in a knee-jerk way at democrats. their latest trick is trying to accuse democrats of not having our own plan. that's a diversion. it rings hollow. the only proposals that have been made that would actually avoid a government shutdown are numerous compromises that democrats have offered republicans, and i'd like to remind my house friends, as you all know, the senate needs 60 votes to pass a bill. we can't pass anything without republican agreement, yet our senate republican colleagues are nowhere to be found. since the senate rejected the republican job-killing budget proposal that would cost americans 700,000 jobs a month ago, republicans have not moved an inch off their plan. speaker boehner knows when it comes to averting a government

shutdown on april 8, it is the tea party, not the democrats, that are causing the trouble. at this point, the only hurdle left to a bipartisan deal, the only obstacle in the way is the tea party, but for the -- but for the tea party, we could have an agreement that reduces spending by a historic amount. we could have a deal that keeps the government open. a tea party rebellion may hurt the house republican leadership politically, but a shutdown will hurt americans, all americans much more. it's time for house republican leaders to rip the band-aid off. mr. speaker, it's time to forget the tea party and take the deal. there are only ten days left before the current c.r. expires. there is no new stopgap being

prepared by house republicans. it seems like the only viable proposal is the one the speaker walked away from. so the speaker faces a choice: return to the deal he was prepared to accept before the tea party rebelled last week or risk a shutdown on april 8. i think we know what the right answer is. it is clear. the speaker has a choice: appease the tea party and shut down the government or take the right and principled stand and move the government forward by coming to a reasonable compromise between both parties that cuts the budget significantly. alabama. mr. sessions: government funding is set to expire next week on april 8. we are in the midst of a 2011

fiscal year that ends september 30, and the congress has only appropriated money through april 8. if congress does not act by that time, the government would shut down. congress needs to act, but congress needs to listen to the american people, listen to the financial experts that we have dealt with, and to reduce spending and reduce the surging debt that we have, the surging annual deficit that we face this year. la predicted i think $1.6 trillion or so. maybe $1.5 trillion now. the largest deficit in the history of the republic. nothing has ever been seen like it before. and it has got to be addressed. there's no way around it. so we've got this deadline hanging over our heads, and the

reason is that my colleagues and the democratic leadership here in the senate won't agree to the kind of substantial but realistic spending reductions that the house of representatives has sent to us. they sent us a budget plan that i think will work. but what weear is that the sky will fall if we trim the $61 billion from a $3.7 trillion. $3.7 billion that we spend. if we reduce that spending by $61 billion, somehow this will cause the country to sink into oblivion. the american people know better than that. that is not realistic. of course we can cut those kind of numbers out of this huge budget that we have. and the american people will be better off for i

as ranking member on the budget committee, we've looked at the numbers, and that $61 billion reduces the baseline of federal spending by $61 billion. but over ten years, because its baseline reduction would save $860 billion. this is the kind of small but significant step that does make a difference. people say it doesn't make any difference. why don't we just increase spending? why do we cut spending at all? of crse we've got to reduce spending. the american people know that the borrowed money and overspending of the past two years have failed to produce what it promised. instead, all that has been achieved through this massive surge and federal spending through the stimulus package and other programs is a crushing debt burden that weakens our economy and is a drag on our

economy. as experts witnesses have told us, it threatens our economic future. alan simpson, former republican senator; erskine bowles, formerly the chi of staff to president clinton, appointed by president obama to cochair the debt commission, the fiscal commission, reported to us -- and jointly they submitted a written statement that said that if the united states fails to act, it faces the most predictable economic crisis in its history." this is a real warning. and they said that such a crisis could arrive as soon as or two years. people have been saying we're on the wrong track f. we don't get off of it if three, four, five years we're going to have a crisis. more and more peoe are warning us that that crisis is sooner.

mr. bowles said give or take a little bit, we'll have a crisis. mr. simpson said i think within a year. the american people rightly expect their elected leaders to confront this threat with seriousness and candor. but the president has never once looked the american people in the eye and told them the truth about the financial crisis we face. has he ever discussed those kind of words with the american people that we face an actual crisis? we could have a debt problem that hit us very quickly, just like the one in 2007, that put us in a tkraoep session, and we're on a fragile recovery now. we need to keep that recovery going. the last thing we need to do is have another recession, some sofrt financial -- sort of financial kickback, pushback, collapse. it puts more people out of work. it weakens an already struggling economy. it's not necessary that this

occur. the president and his budget director have instead, being truthful with us, falsely boasted to the american people that their budget, that under their budget we will -- quote -- "live within our means." and -- quote -- "not add more to the debt." and -- quote -- "we're not going to spend any more money than we're taking in." he submitted his ten-year budget to the congress, and that's what he says this does. but not one of those statements is true. not one. when the budget was announced, mr. bowles, whom the president appointed to head the debt commission, said it's nowhere close to what we need to be doing to get our house in order. in fact, the congressional budget office finds this, that

our annual deficits never once fall below $748 billion. i was saying $600 billion. now the congressional budget office has done an independent analysis of the president's budget and they say the lowest single annual deficit in ten years would be $748 billion. well, is it going down, you ask? isn't this budget going to put us living within our means and live on what we take? well, in the outer years, the deficits, out seven, eight, nine, ten years of the president's budget, they're going up. and in the tenth year, the budget deficit is $1.2 trillion, $1.2 billion deficit that year. you might ask: what do those numbers mean? we take in about $3.7 trillion -- excuse me. we spend this year abo $3.7

trillion through september 30. we take in $2.2 trillion. this i why we're on an unsustainable path, and we've got to get off of it. it's not a partisan matter. it's a matter that we've g to face reality. we still have members of the senate in denial. we have the majority leader down here complaining that he might not get money for his poetry cowboy, poetry festival in nevada. give me a break. this country is heading in a path of great danger, and we need to turn around. just imagine, if you would, the fate of a c.e.o. if in the process of asking for shareholders to buy company stock, he declared -- quote -- "we're not adding to our debt." while his accountants were telling him that the company's debt was on a path to double, as

our debt is. the president even nominated a budget director, helen higgenbottom, who has no budget experience, deputy director, who attempted to defend these claims before the budget committee last week. i don't know, maybe they couldn't find anybody that would take the job with experience. the best i can tell, she has never had a single business course or economics course, never managed any kind of organization or budget ever. majored i think in political science and campaigned for president obama and senator john kerry. we need some seriousness here. and we in congress are not stepping up to the plate, frankly. we're not taking the kind of decisive action needed to curb our rising debt, and the majority leader, our good

friend, senator reid, which is a tough job, ie got to tell you, 's a tough job, butow he's saying that the problem is as a division within the republican party. you see, you have got these extremists over here, new republicans who got elected last election promising to do something about spending, and they are out of touch. you see, they are extremists. and there are some good republicansver here that they have been here a long time. you know, we know how to get along and cut deals, and we're going to tak care of this thing. you have just got to keep these people under control. but i might remind the leader that nearly -- that every single republican either voted for the the $61 billion in cuts or called for more cuts. there is no division in the republican party about the need to have reasonable and significant reductions in

expenditures. there is an essentially anonymous republican agreement, we ought to cut $61 billion or more from this year's discretionary budget. by contrast, the majority leader lost nearly 1/5 of h caucus on his proposal which was basically to do nothing. cut $4 billion, i think, reduce spending by $4 billion. ten members or more defected. they knew that wasn't enough, even under pressure from the president and from the majority leader. so it's clear where the momentum lies, and i just want t repeat again, though, this is not and cannot be seen as a partisan squabble. the chairman of the federal reserv talked to us a few weeks ago. he submitted a written statement to the budget committee, and this is what mr. bernanke said.

he talked about t congressional budget office debt projections. i have made some reference to those and how dangerous they show our path to be. this is what mr. bernanke said." the c.b.o. projections, by design, ignore the adverse effects that such high debt and deficits would likely have on our economy, but if the government debt and deficits were actually to grow at the pace envisioned in this scenario, the economic and financial effects would be severe. diminishing confidence on the part of investors that deficits will be brought under control would likely lead to sharply rising interest rates on government debt, and potentially to broader financial turmoil. moreover, high rates of

government borrowing would both drain funds away from capital private formation and increase our foreign indebtedness with adverseong-term effects on u.s. output, incomes and standard of living. he goes on to say it is widely understood that the federal government is on an unsustainable path, yet as a nation, we haveone little to address this critical threat to our economy. doing nothing will not be an option indefinitely the longer we wait to act, the greater the risk and the more wrenching the inevitable changes on the budget will be. by contrast, the prompt adoption of a credible program to reduce future deficits would not onln hans the economic growth and stability in the long run but would ao yield substantial near-term benefits now, in terms of lower long-term interest

rates and increased consumer and business confidence. close quote. this is the head of the federal reserve, the man most, i guess, supposedly knowledgeable about the economy of the united states of america. we're not making ts up. so we have a prosal from our democratic majority in the senate to do nothing. basically, to do zero, nada. and this kind of warning we have got, we are living in a fantasy world if we don't think we can cut $61 billion from this budget. my friend, john mcmillan, just elected the director of agriculture and industries in alabama, is facing a critical crisis in his department. i just saw the headline in the paper. he has 200 employees -- he had 200 employees. he's going to have to lay off 60 of them.

cities and counties are doing this kind of thing all over the country. do you think the state of alabama will cease to exist if that happens? it's too much. i hope -- it's sad that they have got that kind of challenge before them. we don't have to do that much rightow, but if we took those kind of steps, something significant, we could make a bigg difference than a lot of people realize in the debt that we're facing. governor cuomo in new york and christie in new jersey and brown in california and others all over the country are making real significant alterations in their level of spending while we worry about protecting the cowboy poetry festival in nevada. and remember this: people have forgotten this.

since bob took -- since president obama took office, discretionary spending on our federal programs in congress have increased 24%. we didn't have the money for that. we never should have increased spending that much. it was a big error. but you know what they said? don't worry, we' making investments in the future. but you've got to have money to make investments. if you don't have money, how can you make investments? all of this increase was borrowed. we're in huge debt, and when you increase spending, you have to borrow the money to increase spending. every penny is borrowed. we did an $800 billion stimulus package. every penny was borrowed. we will pay $30 billion-plus a year interest on that borrowed money for as long as i'm alive, and longer, no doubt. there is no plan to pay that debt